Rest that renews

All too often, I feel like Sunday is just part of “the weekend” at our house. Michael and I have taken some steps in our family’s rule of life to make our weekends less busy, but I have been feeling a nudge to take a hard look at how we keep the Lord’s Day holy…or don’t.

I wonder if I speak for many people in confessing that I feel swept along by a current of busyness, such that Sunday comes around each week, and despite my best intentions, I can’t depend upon it to be a day of rest. It’s almost like a pleasant surprise if it’s a day of rest. In fact, if I’m being honest, the weekend sometimes feels like two Saturdays in a row, except we have to find a mass on Sunday morning that works with whatever events we have to go to on Sunday.

And that was tough to type. It sounds…like we’re doing it wrong somehow.

“The disciples of Christ…are asked to avoid any confusion between the celebration of Sunday, which should truly be a way of keeping the Lord’s Day holy, and the “weekend”, understood as a time of simple rest and relaxation. This will require a genuine spiritual maturity…In this way, they will be led to a deeper understanding of Sunday, with the result that, even in difficult
situations, they will be able to live it in complete docility to the Holy Spirit.”

 “when Sunday loses its fundamental meaning and becomes merely part of a “weekend”, it can happen that people stay locked within a horizon so limited that they can no longer see “the heavens.” Hence, though ready to celebrate, they are really
incapable of doing so.”

I felt like these passages were speaking directly to me.

It’s intimidating to think of what Michael and I may need to change about our lives in order to “see the heavens” and live out that authentic understanding of the Lord’s Day. But St. Pope John Paul II addresses my fear head-on:

“From the beginning of my Pontificate, I have not ceased to repeat: “Do not be afraid! Open, open wide the doors to Christ!”. In the same way, today I would strongly urge everyone to rediscover Sunday: Do not be afraid to give your time to Christ! Yes, let us open our time to Christ, that he may cast light upon it and give it direction. He is the One who knows the secret of time and the secret of eternity, and he gives us “his day” as an ever new gift of his love. The rediscovery of this day is a grace which we must implore, not only so that we may live the demands of faith to the full, but also so that we may respond concretely to the deepest human yearnings.”